Dr. Shane and Dr. Jennifer Garrison, School of Theology Faculty at Campbellsville University join the podcast to discuss the dangers of age compression and give strategies for proper growth and development.

Randy Helms, Children’s Pastor at Mountain West Church, GA, joins the podcast to discuss the myth of ministry and discover together what God’s intent is for those that He calls to this incredible journey! We will discover that balance is a myth and learn how to prioritize.

Todd Villemont, Children’s Pastor at FBC Naples, FL, joins the podcast to discuss the importance of connecting with parents in ministry. Parents are connected in all aspects of life, but they are losing their kids to the world because they have lost any connection with their children. Todd and Chuck discuss practical ways that leaders can help parents connect with their children and with their church.

Teaching a room full of elementary kids can be more intimidating than a room full of adults, but it doesn’t have to be. John Murchison joins our podcast to discuss some simple strategies that will help you keep their attention and better communicate the gospel.

We all know life gets messy, and as we minister to families these hurts appear in our ministries. In this episode, Heidi Hensley, Director of Children’s Ministry at Shadow Mountain Community Church, stops by the podcast to discuss the most common hurts we encounter as we minister to parents and kids, and how we can best respond to them in a Godly way while empowering parents to be key leaders in their child’s spiritual life.

Relationships are undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of our lives. What would it look like if we could set our children up to relate differently from their earliest stages: to have friendships that build up rather than tear down, to have healthy and appropriate boundaries, to handle conflict in ways that create more depth in relationships? Sissy Goff, Director of Child and Adolescent Counseling at Daystar, joins the podcast to discuss social milestones we believe all kids need to reach, and are reaching in lesser degrees today than ever before. If we can teach the kids we love to relate differently today, it will change the fabric of their lives into adulthood as friends, spouses, co-workers and even parents themselves.

Dealing with children’s behavior is one of the most challenging parts of serving in children’s ministry. Jenny Funderburke Smith, Minister to Children at West Bradenton Baptist Church, drops by the podcast to discuss the purpose of discipline in kids’ ministry as discipleship and helps us identify practical ways to structure the ministry and classroom environments to develop a positive culture of behavior.

Sam Luce stops by the podcast booth at ETCH 2017 to talk about what the Gospel demands of parents in our ministries. Sam’s message to his parents is all about how we need to live in transparency, suffer publicly, and trust Jesus completely.

According to statistics, we are the most addicted, in-debt, depressed, obese population in U.S. history. We go to great lengths to avoid, deny, medicate or suppress emotions. Our country is full of adults who never learned how to navigate their emotions in a constructive way. What would it look like to raise a generation of emotionally and spiritually healthy children? David Thomas, LMSW, stops by the podcast to discuss the emotional development of children.

A long-time friend of LifeWay Kids, Kelli McAnally, stops by the podcast to help us discover ways to help parents stay connected to your ministry through family fun fellowships, including ideas like: Daddy/Daughter Date Nights, snack and chat trivia, Build-A-Nativity, and church scavenger hunts!